A new year brings with it new questions, debates and unknowns about the upcoming season of Formula 1 racing that will follow.
Just like any other year, throughout 2023 we canvassed RaceFans readers about their thoughts on the biggest talking points to come from the year of F1.
There was strong consensus on some topics, wildly different opinions on others and some spot on predictions. But here’s what you thought about the last year of Formula 1…
Predictions
As ever, before the season began in 2023 you were asked to pick which drivers you felt would beat their team mates over the coming season.
Unsurprisingly, there were some you nailed. A whopping 97% of you tipped Max Verstappen to beat Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez – and it was not a close battle in the end. You also correctly backed Lewis Hamilton (74%) to beat George Russell and, understandably, Lando Norris (94%) to outscore rookie team mate Oscar Piastri.
For our readers the fight between the Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly was too close to call – it produced a straight 50-50 split between the two new team mates. And Kevin Magnussen, with 60% of the vote, was favoured to out-perform the returning Nico Hulkenberg, though Hulkenberg ultimately prevailed.
When Daniel Ricciardo was dropped by McLaren at the end of 2022, he was immediately brought back into the Red Bull fold as a reserve driver. Before he became of the biggest stories of the year when he replaced Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri mid-season, we asked you where you felt Ricciardo would be racing for this upcoming 2024 season. The majority of you (34%) predicted he would still be a Red Bull reserve driver at this stage, while 24% of you correctly predicted he would be racing for a team that finished in the bottom half of the 2023 championship.
In McLaren’s 60th anniversary year, we asked you to predict where their next single-seater title would come from. Almost 70% of you picked IndyCar, while just as many (14%) predicted that their next championship would come from Formula E as you did they would never win another single-seater title ever again. Only 3% of you believe they will the F1 world championship before IndyCar or Formula E – it remains to be seen which option, if any, will prove to be correct.
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Reactions
There were many major news stories that broke over the course of the season, but one of the biggest storylines heading…
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